Abstract
The hepatic diseases (HD) and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) that affected children and adults patients from Santa Catarina State, Southern region of Brazil were studied. For children, the incidence of cirrhosis and cepatitis was 46 and 40% of the cases, respectively, and that of HCC was 14%. Sixty four % of the cases of hepatitis were caused by virus infection and 22% were autoimmune. The virus A and B hepatitis was 7.1 and 21.4% of the total of virus hepatitis cases, respectively. The percentage of deaths by cirrhosis was 71.4 and that by HCC was 28.6%. Although the HCC incidence in Santa Catarina has been low in relation to other HD studied between 1980 and 1997, it is important to emphasize that the virus hepatitis had a high participation especially by B virus infection (HBV). In adults, the incidence of cirrhosis and hepatitis was higher (70.5 and 14.3% of the cases, respectively) than HCC (11.7%). The percentage of deaths by cirrhosis and HCC were 77.7 and 17.3%, respectively. Apart from other factors that could be leading to the HD reported in Santa, Catarina State, one should take into account other factors such as the diet and mycotoxin contamination. Aflatoxin B1 is a potent carcinogen and the diet in the south of the country includes food that has been reported being highly contaminated by that toxin. The food that are preferred and mostly eaten, either by children or adults, as snacks are: peanuts (pacoquinha = ground peanut paste with sugar) and corn (high variety of corn snacks and polenta = cornflour porridge).
